Osra stared at the sheets of parchment with something akin to horror on her face.
The fruit of Talia’s labour was scrawled across a dozen pages. A dozen pages filled with dimensions, sketches, and a dizzying array of scrolling runework. Her writing was messy in places, and shaky in others, but the lines of the runic script were steady and painstakingly clean. The rest was easy to notice and easier to fix, with Osra’s power. Runework, on the other hand, was finicky to begin with, and they were better off getting it right from the get-go.
It had taken Talia an entire day. And that was just transcribing the diagram she’d spent a week putting together in her mind. Some part of her thoughts had been dwelling on the design at every waking moment.
The result was one of the most complex enchantments she’d ever created. Had she been in Karzgorad still, it would’ve been the thesis enchantment for her journeyman dissertation.
Osra looked at it like it was a personal affront.
“Talia…this…I—” The girl’s voice choked off in a crack.
Talia frowned.
“Is it too much? I broke it down into components—you won’t have to make it all in one go. And besides, I’ll be right here to guide you with the runework,” she reassured, “Just treat it like when we made the ash lance, and it’ll come out great.”
Osra’s face inched upward to meet Talia’s earnest expression.
“T-Talia, this is a prosthetic. We’re not talking about making some weapon here!”
“Er—yes? I don’t see the problem.”
“Don’t see the problem?!” Osra spluttered, “You still have your arm! That you would mar the purity of flesh by replacing it with something dead and cold, it-it’s— do you care so little for the body the gods gave you? I just don’t understand how—why—”
Seeing her friend get more and more flustered, Talia cut in with a dollop of logic.
“Osra, people get prosthetics all the time. All. The. Time. By the Stone, it’s probably the most common commission my master gets, after Legion contracts. Hells, it’s likely the most complete domain of arcanistry we have left, after architectural runework,” she said calmly, “Are you telling me that miners who lose a hand just have to…live with it? Anyone who loses an eye must simply bear it if they don’t want to what? Blaspheme?”
“No! The tenets allow for what is already lost, of course they do, but you haven’t lost it yet. I know it’s bad, but that’s not a reason to give up— What are you doing?”
Talia had pushed her stool back in the middle of the girl’s sentence and begun to unbuckle the clasps of her amour one-handed. Her pauldron went first, then the vambrace, and the scaled sleeve. Numb tingling shot up ripped nerves as she gingerly pulled the shattered limb from her under-armour. Her shoulder ached and burned, everything below a prickling mystery.
Talia heard Osra suck in a breath. The girl’s protests died after that.
----------------------------------------
“Enter.”
Talia swept aside the curtain and stepped into Lazarus’s quarters, purpose in her gait. The elf wore a loose robe, paintbrush in hand, standing by the still unfinished mural she’d seen the first time she was there.
The indistinct, diving figure hadn’t truly gained any definition, but the surroundings had grown darker, more menacing. A stark contrast to the ball of radiant light that shone in the centre of the piece.
An…interesting evolution.
The elf’s paintbrush clacked into a waiting cup of water, staining it yellow. He stepped back, eyes still fixed on his work.
“How can I help you this evening, Arcanist?”
Talia stepped up beside him, her eyes lingering on the kettle that sat innocently on the counter as she joined him by the mural. Wordlessly, she handed him a sheet of parchment. At her master’s workshop, doing the write-ups for the medical-adjacent aspects of prosthesis design had been as close as she’d ever gotten to following in Orvall’s footsteps.
Never would Talia have imagined that one day she’d be doing the same thing for her own prosthesis, but she supposed there was something about designing her own limb that had an appeal.
“You wrote this?” Lazarus asked, surprise colouring his voice, “Impressive, that you have learned to use your off hand so quickly. And so proficiently.” The elf turned emerald eyes on her, thin, elegant brows quirked. “Some colleagues of mine would even say it was impossible.”
Talia shrugged and smirked.
“Lost a little sleep, but once I put my mind to it, it wasn’t hard. Just tedious. And painful,” she admitted, “I think the threat of the end of life as we know it helped, if you want the secret. But that’s not why I’m here.”
Somehow, the disbelief in the healer’s eyes as he looked over her work served as a kind of vindication. Lazarus glanced at the parchment briefly before turning to her with another question.
“And your mental difficulties? You never returned for another talk, but Darkclaw and Grif have both attested to your…stability. Am I to assume that you have managed on your own?”
Talia tensed. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that she’d be…supervised—an oversight that she would correct going forward. It wouldn’t do to act as if she weren’t being watched. She was more ‘stable’ now—as the healer put it—but sending the wrong signals could end poorly.
“The norroot did its magic,” she answered blandly.
The long look the healer gave her did not ease her tension. She only loosened when he turned his attention back to her write-up.
“You wouldn’t know this, but I only began my training after Bill 32. Psionics had already been phased out of medical practice by then. But my aunt…well, she had stories about psionic self-modification. Most did not end well.”
Talia hummed noncommittally.
“You know, Calisto said something funny the other day,” she mused, approaching the unfinished mural, “She said, and I quote, ‘the memories of elves are useless to chroniclers.’ Said you could tell me what she meant.”
Now, it was Lazarus’s turn to freeze.
“She should not have said that. Moreover, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand,” the healer replied tersely.
Oohh. A secret. Tantalizing. Shame I don’t have time to pick at it.
Talia allowed a toothy grin to stretch across her lips.
“Neither does ‘psionic self-modification.’”
Lazarus looked up from the write-up, an odd expression on his face.
“I see,” he finally replied, “Have a care either way, Arcanist, that you do not unduly antagonize those who would help you achieve our goals. There are no enemies here. Those lie beyond the walls, and there are more than enough of them without adding more from within.”
Taking the elf’s words to mean she had pushed too hard, Talia nodded, adopting a more conciliatory tone.
“Of course. I didn’t mean to push buttons, but I can’t afford to indulge…hysterics. None of us can. We have a job to do. It’s time to get it done. The fallout can be dealt with once we’ve succeeded.”
“Only if we remain intact to do so,” Lazarus opined quietly.
“The write-up?” she prompted, letting him have the last word.
Lazarus made his way over to his armchair, perching himself atop it and going silent. The document wasn’t long, but it was dense. Letting him take his time, Talia examined the mural once more, gaze riveted to the embryonic orb of light. The darkness it beat back. The pair of sketched hands outstretched to grab it.
Seems everybody deals with inner darkness in their own ways.
“Ahem. You have left no room for a nerve tissue analog, nor accounted for an attachment strap,” Lazarus commented, sounding perplexed.
“I explain that near the end,” Talia responded idly.
Osra didn’t notice, but he’ll probably object—
Right on cue, Lazarus grunted. Surprise, or mild shock.
“This is…highly unusual, Arcanist. You do realize that removal will be nigh impossible? By Temarah, this is closer to a graft than a prosthesis.”
“It’s not that unusual,” Talia protested, “It’s only about a third that will be permanently attached. The rest is fully removable for easy maintenance.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“You wish to meld metal directly onto your humerus, or at least what is left of it. I fail to see how that is standard practice. Not to mention you are putting a lot of faith in this ‘prototype’ runework. Without nerve tissue analogs, if the enchantment fails—”
“It won’t,” Talia interrupted.
At least I’m pretty sure I figured it out.
“And don’t exaggerate, I’ve seen prosthetic limbs installed before—I know you put metal in them. If anything, my method is closer to glue than anything. Far less invasive. But that’s irrelevant. I’ve thought about those things. Is there anything else that strikes you as medically inadvisable?”
With a sigh, Lazarus ran over the write-up a final time.
“No. Other than those elements, I believe you have covered the main touchpoints. My main concern would actually be the weight of the device, and the strain it might place on your skeleton, but your regeneration talent should be able to handle that with no issues. Though I imagine your balance will suffer, and you will, of course, have to develop muscle in your shoulder to compensate.”
Talia shrugged, walking over to join the seated healer in a parody of how they’d sat just a week ago. Except this time she wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown. Or drugged.
“Look at it this way,” she said, about as close to joking as she could, “At least now you don’t have to worry about attaching new nerves without proper medical facilities. All you need to do is cut, and the artefact will do the rest. Mostly. No mess, no complications, no room for error.”
Lazarus set the write-up down and clasped his hands in his lap. Concern was unmistakable on his face, but he seemed to understand that she was committed. His next words confirmed it.
“You will do this regardless of what I say, correct?” he asked, dragging a hand across his face.
“Yes. As it is, I’m a liability. With this, I’m an asset. More than an asset. A force to be reckoned with.”
The mere thought sent a thrill of pleasure racing through Talia’s veins.
Who needs a wand, when you have a magical artefact for an arm, one that charges itself?
Lazarus held her stare for a moment before shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Something about ‘non-standard’ and ‘reckless’.
“Fine. You give me little choice, but I suppose it is your body,” he relented, “I will be bringing my apprentices to watch and assist with the procedure. The experience will be invaluable to them, unorthodox as it is. When should I expect to perform the amputation?”
Talia breathed an internal sigh of relief. She’d expected him to say yes, but she hadn’t been one-hundred percent sure.
Lopping off my own arm would not have been fun.
“Well, Calisto said she’d be gathering the volunteers for the expedition tomorrow night. Osra is fast enough, and the piece is small enough that we should be done sometime tonight. So I figure in the morning would be fine.”
Lazarus stared at her woodenly, unimpressed.
“Of course you do.”
Talia grinned.
Progress.
----------------------------------------
Talia looked down at the misshapen lump she’d once counted as a faithful limb. Like a loyal beast, well trained, a lifelong companion. Now lame. Feral. Useless. The merciful thing was to put it down. The logical thing was to replace it.
Today, she would do both.
Lazarus bustled quietly around with his apprentices, preparing the table Osra had shaped out of stone. The implements of his craft lay atop sterilized sheets of black cloth, set in neat rows.
Osra herself was slumped across a worktable on the opposite side of the room, fast asleep. The two women had worked through the night, falling into a steady rhythm. Osra shaped one part of the prosthesis, and then Talia checked it over while the metal mage rested. Once any flaws were fixed, the process repeated until the artefact was complete.
And what an artefact it is.
From a practical perspective, Talia’s master never would’ve allowed such a monstrosity to be created. Not as more than a thought experiment and display of mastery. It cost far too much silverite and mithril—though getting the precious metals from Dhustrun had been leagues easier than getting them from his predecessor. The adamite, she’d sourced from her now ill-fitting vambrace and left scale sleeve.
More than the material cost, however, was the omnipresent bane of arcanistry—mana cost. The sheer amount of functionality Talia expected from her replacement limb made it so that the artefact would never at one time contain enough mana to activate every enchantment. Not necessarily a faux pas in enchantment design, but definitely looked down on.
Good thing I’m a living mana battery.
That didn’t mean Talia hadn’t added capacitor runes. She wasn’t an idiot. If—or more accurately, when—she ran out of mana, she at least wanted to have the use of both arms.
But she could go over everything in detail later. They’d tested the bare bones already, and everything seemed to work. It was time to install it.
For a moment she considered letting Osra sleep through it. Her friend had worked hard, she deserved her rest. Something told Talia that she’d never hear the end of it though.
“Osra,” she whispered giving the girl a shake, “Osra—”
The mage jerked in her stool.
“Huh? Wuzzat? Talia?”
“Good morning,” Talia said, “Time to see the fruits of our labour.”
“It’s time?” Osra asked, a flicker of fear in her tired eyes.
“You staying? I won’t blame you if you don’t want to.”
The thought of it alone seemed to make the mage queasy, but to her credit, she swallowed and nodded.
“I’ll stay. I-If you want, I can hold your hand…”
Talia shrugged.
“Sure.”
The arcanist felt the puzzled look drill into her back as she made her way to the impromptu operation table.
No time for that, Osra. Time to move forward.
----------------------------------------
The operation itself was painless. Lazarus had gone through the motions of administering some kind of anesthetic, but Talia had only pretended to drink, handing the ‘empty’ cup to Osra with a wink and a tap of her temple.
The spells she’d picked up from the crescians would serve her better. Nothing beat cutting off pain at the source, after all.
Watching someone cut off your arm was a novel experience. Crystal mind kept much of the revulsion and all of the fear at bay, but there was a primal kind of terror that came along with watching your limb get removed.
For some reason, even with the numbing spell active, she still felt Lazarus saw through the bone. A nail-on-slate grinding vibration that rattled her chest. It only got worse when the healer brought out the bone file. Unpleasant, but a far cry from the agony that she should have been feeling.
Finally, veins and arteries had been sewn shut, and the remaining muscles of her bicep had been wrapped around the last third of her humerus, covered by a flap of skin. The bevelled end of bone stabbed out from the stump like the stalk of a mushroom, bleach white stained with lingering blood.
“The socket, Mirielle,” Lazarus ordered, all according to the plan they’d discussed before starting.
The ‘socket’ was what would adhere to the remains of her humerus, and attach to the rest of the limb. Pre-charged, it looked like a hollow pin, scaled up to the size of a human arm. A long, thin, hollow tube attached to a small bowl. Made from all silverite, most of the exterior was inscribed with chains of tiny capacitor runes. Hundreds of them. The craftsmanship alone would have been unthinkable without Osra’s help. It wouldn’t fit perfectly, but that was what the runescript on the inside was for. In fact, they’d purposely added extra material.
Feeling Lazarus pause, Talia turned her head and saw his finger hovering above the activation rune. This was the part he’d taken issue with.
“Do it,” Talia said, her voice flat.
The healer’s finger fluttered against the rune like Talia imagined one might caress a lover. Gentle and hesitant. Nervous.
The skin around Talia’s fresh stump suddenly got tight. Raw magic sparked across the part-artefact, setting it ablaze in a wash of indigo light. Silverite contracted around bone and flesh, constricting until all that was left was a tiny seam between the two. Then even that disappeared as the metal slid under her skin. Blood welled up in thin rivulets as tendrils of mental extended themselves as if alive. Talia’s flesh squirmed as if infested with parasitic worms as the socket anchored itself further up into her muscle and bone.
An ingenious use of architectural runescript if I’ve ever seen one.
Reggie would be mortified. But the result was worth it.
Now, it would take the grip of a god to tear her arm from her.
Lazarus fussed about, having watched in horrified fascination as Talia’s design did its work, glancing between her and the stump with a worried look the whole time. As if worried whatever painkiller he’d ostensibly given her would run its course. No, that didn’t quite make sense. In that case, he was likely worried about unforeseen Consequences.
Luckily for both of them, none were forthcoming.
When the socket completed its work, the runes on its surface dimmed and died, and the part-artefact went inert.
Lazarus took the roll of sterile bandages from a mildly nauseated-looking Greg, wrapping what was left of Talia’s arm after wiping at the cuts with strong spirits and coating them with an unguent.
“Any pain?” he asked as he worked.
Talia shook her head awkwardly against the table, still riveted by her new…body part.
Lazarus frowned and shot a glare at Greg.
“Did you add anything to the analgesic?”
Greg shook his head without looking away from Talia’s stump.
“No, master. Just the muscera tincture, like you said.”
Lazarus’s glare switched targets. Talia shrugged under the withering look, nonplussed.
“Dismissed, apprentices. I expect a report on the pitfalls and risks associated with the process you just witnessed by tomorrow. Your own conclusions, please. This is a novel technique, and we know nothing about its repercussions. Our work will be foundational here. Let that motivate you.”
“Yes, master,” came the two-toned chorus.
Lazarus watched the pair pack their things and leave, going through the post-surgery checklist with practiced efficiency, barely even needing to pay attention.
“You did hear what I said about psionic self-modification? Pain inhibition especially can cause a host of problems I am not sure you understand the breadth of. Pain is a necessary sense that tells your body a number of important things,” the elf snapped acerbically.
“I know. I’m not an idiot, contrary to what you seem to think,” Talia snapped back.
Lazarus grunted. No, not grunted. Growled.
“Do us both favour then and prove it by exhibiting some wisdom. Mind healers, of the magical and non-magical persuasion both, went and go through stringent training. Even the Legion’s spiritlifters had a rigorous education on the workings of the sapient mind. You meddle with things that could deal irreparable damage to your psyche. The mind is not a lump of clay to be moulded and twisted haphazardly.”
For a moment, Talia considered telling him she’d learned by experiencing the memories of long-dead spider psions. A practical education, such as it was. But there was no gain there. Better to spit out a few platitudes and appease him.
“Won’t happen again, Healer, I promise. I just didn’t want to risk your tincture running out at the wrong moment. That bone saw was plenty bad even without pain.”
When nothing else was forthcoming, Talia turned, gracing Osra with a smile. The young woman’s caramel features were pasty and sallow as she considered her friend. The blood in Talia’s hand had similarly fled for brighter tunnels under the assault of the metal mage’s death grip.
She was more worried than I was.
The realization concerned Talia briefly—the crystal mind spell was designed to mitigate stress and fear responses, not banish them so completely. She brushed the worry aside. Either the spell was working, or it wasn’t. She couldn’t complain about a lack of nerves. Besides, Osra was clearly anxious enough for the both of them.
“I’m fine, Osra,” Talia reassured, cracking a toothy smile, “Why don’t you go grab the fun part of the new me?”
The girl didn’t react, simply staring. Talia followed her gaze to where it came to rest on the discarded arm. The severed limb oozed congealing blood, looking all the more brutalized for its removal. Lumps of bone pressed haphazardly against thin skin covered in knotted scars. Fingers that had been turning blue even before the amputation were inching closer to black, a sharp contrast to the bloodless pallor of the rest of the forearm and elbow.
The sight might have disturbed her, once. No longer.
Talia gave Osra’s hand a gentle squeeze.
“Osra? Did you hear me?”
The girl jerked.
“Sorry, what?”
“Mind giving me a hand?” Talia quipped.
Osra gave her a disgusted look, glancing between the severed limb and Talia like the psion had just told her she’d have to eat it. An eye roll and a scoff hopefully conveyed enough disapproval.
“Not that hand. I was more thinking the one you slaved over for an entire day and night, you know?”
“Oh. Oh. Right. Let me just—”
Then she retched all over Talia’s lap.